Therapy Activities For Teens

If you are considering anger management therapy, "new" may be better—or it may not. A lot depends on the specifics of your situation and what you feel comfortable with as you work on a solution to your anger problem. Many anger management therapies aren't new: they've been around for years, and many people have used them to begin leading more productive, happier, more self controlled lives. But if you've tried anger management techniques and haven't had the success you were hoping for, maybe it's time for you to try something new in anger management therapy.

First, the Basics

Most anger management techniques are geared around one or more of the following concepts: relaxation, cognitive restructuring, problem solving, improved communication, using humor to defuse the overpowering emotions, or changing your environment to reduce the stressors that are contributing to your anger response. These are tried and true ideas that have helped many people get a handle on their anger responses. Recognizing that anger has a physiological component, for example, can help you understand why some simple relaxation techniques can buy you the few moments that can sometimes be enough to help you get a handle on your anger. Using humor as a defusing technique can help you learn to redirect your anger in more constructive ways, without ignoring or suppressing in ways that can lead to high blood pressure, digestive problems, or depression. Cognitive restructuring can give you the ability to replace the irrational, emotion-driven thought process that accompany anger with calmer, more logical ones. Changing your environment may be as simple as agreeing with your spouse not to have financial conversations in the evening when you are tired, or staking out some personal time when you first arrive home from work before family demands and requests are allowed.

New Ideas in Anger Management

But for various reasons, you may not have been successful with these techniques. If so, there are new anger management therapies, and even medication therapies for anger management, that may prove helpful to you. One new anger management therapy involves "neuro-linguistic programming," or NLP, a cognitive technique that some therapists use to "re-train" the neural pathways in the brain for different responses. Other new anger management therapies include the use of hypnotherapy as a means of delaying or altering the body's anger response in situations where it would formerly have been activated. These new anger management therapy methods may help you start living a better, more productive and hassle-free life.